Edited to add on Nov 2019 – Funny how we evolve. I don’t hem like this anymore. I wrote a new post on how I do it now. You can find that here: https://jeanelizabethstudio.com/finish-line-2/ Try them all and see what works for you.
Oddly enough, I used the same title even though I didn’t remember I’d written a post on hemming already. Who knows, I may find another way and do a Finish Line 3 in a couple of years. I thought I’d leave this one up because someone might prefer it to the new way I do it.
Thought I’d share a trick that is new to my weaving arsenal. Fusible thread (FT) is my new best friend. On these towels, I threw three shots of FT at the beginning and end of each towel with two shots of a contrasting thread to give me a cutting line. This is the first time I’ve tried this and I love it. I took the whole length of toweling to the ironing board and ironed each of the FT areas. Make sure to use a pressing sheet on top of and under the FT or you’ll get it all over your iron or ironing surface. I threw caution to the wind, cut between the lines and threw the towels in the wash. A couple of them lost a few picks of weaving where I hadn’t ironed quite enough, but it worked out really well.
This saved me SO much time as I didn’t have to haul the serger out and stitch down each end. Obviously, it saved serger thread as well. It also saved the extra bulk that the serger stitching puts in the hems, which already always feel too thick for me. I’ve tried the trick of weaving with a finer thread in the hems, but I don’t like how it draws in the selvedges. Speaking of hems… I usually weave them in the same structure as the rest of the towel. If you weave a plain weave hem on a twill towel, you are going to get the little flared out ends when you sew up the hem. When doing twill sometimes I do a different twill pattern for the hem, sometimes I do the same as the rest of the towel. Just depends on my mood when I sit down to weave.
Back to the FT. A nice surprise was the fact that when I pressed the hems up to get them prepared for stitching, the FT held the hem! I didn’t really need the clips, but I like them as a back up. Next time I’ll use four shots of FT at each end to help facilitate this added little bonus.
So here are the eight towels I cut off. I’ve already been weaving on what I retied on and will most likely get five more towels. One will be short because I was trying out different white wefts and ran out. Anxious to feel the difference in the hand of the fabric from using the different manufacturer’s 8/2 cotton.
A couple of other things… After washing, I always take the towels out of the dryer before they are fully dry. The dampness helps in the pressing. When I finish hemming, I wash them again and it usually is enough to get the creases from the first wash.